by Bette Greene
At recess, she stood on a three-step ladder to bring down a heavy book from the top shelf.
“This book may have the secret we’re looking for,” she said, pointing to a page. “Right here,” she whispered, the way people do when they’re telling secrets. “It says that people who have an allergy to long-haired dogs, like the collie, might not have an allergy to a short-haired dog, like the chihuahua.”
At the kennel I held Friendly close to me while Pa explained about the allergy to Mr. Grant.
“We don’t breed chihuahuas,” said the kennel owner. “But we happen to have one that I got for arranging a mating between a male chihuahua from Paragould and a female chihuahua from Walnut Ridge. So you sure are welcome to swap,” he said, reaching out for Friendly.
“Wait!” I said. “A person has got to say good-bye, don’t they?” I looked into Friendly’s eyes and wondered how I could make him understand. “I never wanted to get rid of you, Friendly. I only wanted to get rid of the aller—Her-her-choo! —of the allergy.”
He licked my ear almost as if to tell me not to worry because any dog as friendly as Friendly would get along just fine.
Again Mr. Grant reached out, only this time I gave him my Friendly. As he took him away, I heard him say, “Rest of the collies going to be mighty happy to see you again.”
When he returned, Friendly wasn’t with him. “An allergy sure is a bothersome thing,” said Mr. Grant. “Reason I know that is because I’ve had an allergy ever since I was about your age.”
It was so hard to believe. “You got yourself an allergy to collies too?” I asked.
“Nope.” Mr. Grant pointed to the bend in his sun-tanned arm. “Tomatoes—that’s what gets my allergy going. One tomato and my arm breaks out like a strawberry patch.”
“Tomatoes don’t bother me a bit,” I said proudly.
“Reckon that’s what an allergy is,” said Mr. Grant. “It’s what don’t bother some folks, bothers other folks a whole lot.”
When we stopped in front of the chihuahua’s run, a tiny fellow came rushing to the gate, barking. “That’s the dog for me,” I said.
On the drive back home I held the chihuahua in my lap while my folks went back to trying to pick out a baby name. I was hoping they’d find a better name for the baby than they found for me.
When Pa turned off the highway onto the dirt road leading to our farm, the puppy jumped off my lap. He stood on his toes, pressing his nose against the truck’s window. I hollered, “Looky there! Look at Tippietoes!”
“Ohhhh,” said Ma, turning her head. “Now ain’t that something? And what a fine name for him too.”
I put my hands against the little dog’s cheeks and gave him a kiss between the eyes. “I now name you—ah-ah—I now name you—ah-ah-ah-choo!”
“Oh no!” said Ma and Pa at exactly the same time.
But finally I was able to say, and say proudly, “I now name you Tippietoes.”
By the time I crawled into bed, my eyes were red and itchy. My nose was sneezy and my chest was wheezy. Ma stood at my doorway. “Tippietoes going to sleep next to the cookstove tonight, but tomorrow evening we’re going to take him back.”
I shook my head no. “Mama, don’t say that. I don’t care nothing about no little allergy, cross my heart I don’t. All I care about is my little dog. My own little Tippietoes.”
“Girl, you ain’t talking nothing but a heap of foolishness. I ain’t about to let you walk around sick. Not as long as I’m your mama, ‘cause I ain’t that kind of mama. Now you get yourself to sleep.”
At first recess, I told Miss Johnson about having an allergy, not just to long-haired dogs but to short-haired ones too.
“Maybe I can find still another secret in that book,” she said, bringing down the big book again. She fingered through a lot of pages before she finally began to read aloud: “People who have an allergy to both long-haired and short-haired dogs might not have an allergy to poodles, as they are the only dogs that never shed hair.”
Pa explained to Mr. Grant what I had learned from the book. “So we’ll be much obliged if you’ll kindly swap Tippietoes here for one of your poodles.”
“Fine with me,” said Mr. Grant, reaching for Tippietoes.
“Wait!” I said, holding onto the little one for another moment. “A person still has to say good-bye.” I patted his chin. He licked my fingers. “Good-bye, little boy, little Tippietoes. I’m sorry you couldn’t be my dog.”
I closed my eyes as I gave him over to Mr. Grant, who took him away. When he came back he said, “Come along folks. Let me introduce you to my poodles.”
We followed him until he stopped at the gate of a chain-link fence. “Poodles may be just the right dog for a girl with an allergy,” he said, pointing to two white dogs that looked more like fluffy powder puffs than real dogs. “Because they never have dandruff or a doggy odor. And the book is right. They never shed a single hair.”
He unhooked the gate and I walked in saying, “This time I’m going to be lucky. This time I hope I’m going to be lucky.”
“Hope so,” said Ma and Pa at exactly the same moment.
Both poodles walked over to say hello. They were quite polite. I bent down and one of the puppies came closer. “Is it you?” I asked him.
He took one step closer, resting his fluffy little head in my hand. I whispered, “I’m going to take real good care of you.”
Inside the crowded cab of the pickup truck, I held the poodle puppy on my lap as Pa turned on the headlights and started for home. My patting must have relaxed the little dog ‘cause he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
After a while Ma said, “I think we ought to name the baby after my great-aunt Alberta.”
Pa’s nose crinkled. “What you want to name our baby after her for?”
Ma’s nose climbed. “Ain’t she my grandma’s sister? The oldest living member of my family?”
“That nosy old lady!” said Pa.
“Aunt Alberta ain’t one bit nosy,” Ma corrected. “What she is, is interested. I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Eugene Lam—”
“Have you all noticed,” I asked, hoping that my interruption would stop an argument from starting, “that I haven’t sneezed even one time?”
Ma smiled. “Ain’t it the truth.”
“And Puffy will never have to go back to Mr. Grant‘s,” I said.
“Puffy?” asked Pa, surprised.
“Don’t you see,” I asked, “how he’s all puffy like cotton candy?”
Ma turned to look at Pa. “Beth has thought up three good names for three dogs while we is still fussing over one name for one baby.”
Puffy opened his eyes and looked around. “You’re here, Puffy,” I said, putting my face into his white fluffiness. “And you’re always going to be ... my ... my—choo! My—ahhhhhhh-ey!”
“Lord, don’t go telling me I heard what I think I heard,” said Ma, fixing her eyes on the ceiling of the truck.
“It ain’t what you think,” I said quickly. “I really—ahhh-choo! Ah-choo-who! I really think I’m catching Billy Boy Williams’s cold. He had one at school today. Sneezed all over the place—choo, choo, choo, like that! Spreading his germs about.”
Pa drove the truck over to the side of the road and turned off the engine. “Beth, I is sorry to disappoint you. I know how much you wanted a pup, but there ain’t nothing I can do.”
“If you take him back,” I warned, “I ain’t never going to live home again. For the rest of my life I’m going to live in the kennel with Puffy.”
My mama patted my hand. “In this life you got to be happy about the good things and brave about the bad ones.”
“I don’t want to be brave,” I shouted. “All I want is my little dog.”
Pa started up the truck, made a U-turn on the highway, and headed back toward the kennel. “Ain’t nothing in this wide world we can do,” he said, shaking his head.
The next morning I asked Miss Johnson to bring down the book ag
ain. But after a while we stopped reading. It didn’t have any more secrets to tell. I walked away ‘cause I didn’t have a single word for a single solitary soul. But later in the afternoon I told her, “I guess it’s nobody’s fault. But I reckon I’m learning to be brave about things I don’t like.”
“And I want you to know,” said Miss Johnson, taking off her glasses, “that I think you’re learning very well.”
When the school bus stopped in front of our sign, I jumped off and with a running leap crossed the ditch.
“How come you shortcutting through the field again?” called Philip Hall. “Ain’t no dog waiting for you today.”
“Guess I know that,” I said, wondering how I could have forgotten. And yet for some reason I really was in a hurry to get home.
When I reached the rise, I could see the chocolate-brown outline of my mother. But it didn’t look like her, not exactly. After I passed the vegetable garden, I could see that it wasn’t her. It was ... my grandmother.
I started running my fast run. “Grandma, Grandma! Hello! ”
“Howdy there, Beth babe,” she called back.
I ran into her arms as she closed them around me. “How come you’re here? All the way from Walnut Ridge?”
Grandma smiled. “I came to see my new grandbaby. Born this very morning, a few minutes after nine.”
“Where are they?” I asked.
“Shhhhh,” she said, pointing to the inside of the house. “They are both real fine, but they’re resting just now.”
I asked, “Is it a . . . is it a brother?”
“A brother for you; a grandson for me,” she said, hugging me some more.
I danced a circle around her. “My own little brother. He’s going to be fun to take care of and fun to play with. Sometimes boys are almost as much fun to play with as girls. I’ve noticed that.”
“Reckon I’ve noticed that too,” said Grandma, joining my dance.
“What’s my brother’s name?”
Grandma stopped dancing. “Your folks ain’t come to no decision on that,” she said.
“Don’t fret about that,” I told her. “I happen to be good at names.”
Then I heard Pa calling from inside the house, “Beth, come on in and meet up with your brother.”
I closed the screen door quietly behind me the way I always remember to do when there is a visitor in the house. Pa stood at the door of his and Ma’s bedroom and waved me on. “I want you to see something real pretty,” he said.
Ma was sitting up in bed, propped up by two pillows. She was wearing her “sick” nightgown—the pink one with the lace running around the neck and collar. When I used to remind her that she ought to get some wear out of it ‘cause she’s never been sick a day in her life, Ma always said, “We’ll see.”
As I came closer, I saw something in her arms that I had never seen there before. A baby.
Ma said, “Fold your arms.”
“Like this?” I asked.
“Just like that,” she said, placing my soft little brother in my arms.
“Ohhhhh,” I said, touching my lips to his warm head. “You are a beautiful baby brother. Baby brother Benjamin.”
“Benjamin?” asked Ma. “Benjamin? Benjamin!—Oh, Lordy, yes. That’s it. That’s the name!”
Pa smiled. “Benjamin is a good strong name for a boy.”
“Finally,” said Grandma, coming into the room. “A name for the baby.”
I put my face next to Baby Benjamin’s and breathed in deep. I didn’t sneeze. “You’re always going to be our Baby Benjamin,” I whispered in his ear. “And anyway, Mr. Grant wouldn’t know what to do with a real baby.”
The Elizabeth Lorraine Lambert & Friend Veg. Stand
April-June
If I’m the number-one best student now, it’s because of what Doc Brenner told me, and I don’t mean what he said about my outgrowing my allergies either. I’m talking about when he patted my wrist and told Ma and Pa, “Whole town is proud of this youngun.”
He went on to tell us about this “smart young fellow” who went through four years of agricultural school with some assistance from him and his friends. Then he said that I had “undeniable talent” and when I was ready for college, he’d be pleased to help me get there too.
The doctor thought they could come up with at least half the money if Pa could manage the other half.
Fancy Annie brought Baby Benjamin out on the porch, sat down next to me, and, without so much as I beg your pardon, interrupted my thoughts. As I played with his two-month-old nibbly toes, I told her, “I’ve decided to become Randolph County’s first veterinarian.”
“Miss Elinor Linwood already done beat you to it,” said Anne. “ ‘Cause she hasn’t had a piece of meat in her mouth since that time she got a hunk of pot roast lodged in her throat.”
I sighed. Being smart can sometimes be a burden. “Folks who don’t eat meat are called vegetarians. I’m going to study in college to become an animal doctor—a veterinarian.”
Anne got up and I followed her into the kitchen, where Ma was standing over the cookstove. Anne spoke to her back. “Would you listen to your younger daughter! Being a farmer’s wife or even a teacher ain’t good enough for our Beth. No sir! She’s got to be more special than that. She’s going to go to college to become a vegernarian!”
“Veterinarian,” I corrected.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with ambition,” said Ma, placing a cover over the cast-iron skillet. “The Lord Jesus had it aplenty.”
After supper I overheard Ma talking proud about what I had decided to become. Pa remarked that half of a heap of money is still a heap of money, “And I don’t know no way to earn that kind of money.”
For days after that I asked everybody I knew how to go about earning college money. My own teacher said right off that it’s easier to earn money if you “first acquire a good education.” When I told her that I needed the money first so I could become educated with it second, Miss Johnson was silent for a spell before replying, “That would make it considerably more difficult.”
When days went by without a single money-making idea worth thinking about, I began to get more and more discouraged. It was Anne, of all people, who began encouraging me. “For a long time now,” she said, “folks been getting me madder than a wet hen saying when the good Lord was passing out brains that little Beth stayed around long enough to get an extra helping. Well, is you going to prove all those folks wrong? Don’t reckon you is.”
“Well, those same people been making me just as mad,” I admitted, “by telling me that you is the prettiest thing since the dawning of creation.”
For a moment Anne and I stared at each other just as though we saw—or understood—something that we had never understood before. Together we drifted out on the front porch and sat down on the steps. We sat for a long spell, not saying anything, just watching the plow from Pa’s tractor turning rows of limey green grass into rich chocolate earth.
Then I remembered something. On the cover of the very last issue of the Saturday Evening Post was a painting of a roadside vegetable stand, and crowding around to buy were some right fancy-looking folks from the city.
The next picture that I saw didn’t come from remembering, ‘cause what I was seeing had never yet been. Not as yet been. Philip Hall and I were selling vegetables from behind our own roadside stand. A sign read: THE ELIZABETH LORRAINE LAMBERT & FRIEND VEG. STAND.
When I told my sister what I was “seeing,” she began beating my shoulder. “Oh, Beth baby, you’ve done done it again.”
I jumped off the porch and started running to where Pa and his tractor were opening up the Arkansas earth. “Plant more!” I called to him in my loudest voice. “Plant more! Much more!”
For days and days after the planting I waited for the first green leaves to pop through the earth. First I worried that the seeds weren’t going to sprout in such a dry soil. Then we had us some rain and I got to worrying that the moisture was sure to r
ot the roots. Even Ma noticed my concern, ‘cause one day when she was helping me weed, she said that I was fretting more over my garden than Luther does over his “precious pigs.”
Still, with all the work I put in, it wasn’t until the first seedlings broke earth that I began to believe, really believe, that vegetables were going to grow and that those vegetables were going to make a veget—a veterinarian out of me.
After the seedlings appeared, we got what Pa said was “good growing weather,” but that doesn’t mean exactly what it sounds like it means. Since farmers are afraid to ever do even the tiniest bit of bragging—thinking that might change their luck for the worse—they say “bad” when what they really mean is “not bad.” And when a farmer says “good growing weather,” then that’s his way of saying it couldn’t be more perfect.
Well, the good growing weather brought forth worthy vegetables. Lovely tomatoes, crunchy corn, and watermelon sweeter than a candy bar.
And on the first free day of summer vacation Philip and I built a stand on the gravelly shoulder of the highway by placing some barn boards over a couple of rickety orange crates. When I began to nail on the sign that I had so carefully painted the night before, Philip read out loud: “The Elizabeth Lorraine Lambert & Friend Veg. Stand” in a voice so high that it actually cracked, probably from lack of oxygen. “That’s not fair!”
I moved Philip’s finger to the word friend. “See, I didn’t leave you out.”
He shook his head. “Not fair!”
“It is too fair,” I insisted. “Whose idea was it? Who did the planting? The weeding? The picking? You is nothing but a Philip-come-lately.”
Philip only gave me a quick look that I couldn’t quite read before going on about his business of arranging the tomatoes, watermelons, and corn in the shape of a pyramid on the counter.
“Sure does look nice,” I said, hoping that a little appreciation would perk him right up. Philip’s face flashed something that could be mistaken for a smile, and just when I was deciding whether or not to count that as progress. a dark blue car came to a stop in front of our stand. Our first customer! Now that was progress, sure enough.